This invention relates to a device for maintaining a lower body garment at the wearer""s waistline.
Men and women have long fought the battle of the bulge around their mid-section and all of the problems that come with it. Often the first part of the body that experiences weight gain is around the mid section and stomach. The resulting paunch or enlarged stomach creates a number of problems, including increased difficulty wearing appropriately sized lower body garments, such as pants, shorts and skirts. This problem is most pronounced for men who do not gain weight in their legs proportionate to weight gain in stomachs and pregnant women who experience most of the weight grain associated with pregnancy in this region of the body.
A person having a larger stomach often experiences problems in wearing lower body garments, particularly pants, because the waistband of those lower body garments, which is designed and meant to encircle the wearer""s torso just at the waistline above the pelvis, often slides down under the wearer""s large stomach. The result is that the wearer must continually adjust his or her pants every time he stands up to bring the pants"" waistband back up to the wearer""s waistline, where it is intended to be.
There have been many attempts at solving the problem of the waistband sagging, including provision of attachment means such as adhesives or other interconnection devices attaching a lower body garment to an upper body garment. Coordinated buttons on pants and buttonholes in a related shirt accommodating the buttons are one example of such interconnection devices, well known in the prior art. In addition, interconnection of the pants to a garment worn over the shoulders, such as a jacket, is known in the art as a means for holding the pants up around the wearer""s waistline. Emulating suspenders by connecting the pants to a garment worn over the shoulders, from which the lower body garment is then suspended, is well known in the art as a means for holding the pants up around the waistline. With all of the solutions to this problem there is one fundamental disadvantage.
Each interconnection of the lower body garment to an upper body or other garment creates another step and additional difficulty and inconvenience to attach and detach the lower body garment in the act of dressing and undressing. Thus, while those solutions are advantageous in that the lower body garment waistband stays in the desired location, they are also disadvantageous because they complicate dressing and undressing. Essentially, it becomes similar to wearing a one-piece jumpsuit. In the solution wherein the pants are interconnected to suspension hooks depending from a jacket worn by the user, the jacket must be connected and disconnected to the pants every time the user puts it on or takes it off.
Another specific example in solving the problem has been of adhesives between the lower body garment and an upper body garment. The problem with that solution is that the adhesive quickly wears out and must frequently be replaced.
There is thus identified a need for a device to keep the waistbands of lower body garments, such as pants, shorts and skirts, up around the wearer""s waistline without requiring any interconnection with upper body garments or suspension from a garment worn over the shoulders.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a device worn by a user to support a lower body garment around the user""s waistline.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a concealed device to support a lower body garment on the user""s waistline.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device to keep a lower body garment up around the wearer""s waistline that does not require attachment to an upper body garment or suspender-type device.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device to keep a lower body garment around a user""s waistline which maintains its position on the user""s body through frictional resistance with the user""s body.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device for holding a lower body garment around the wearer""s waistline which cooperates with an external belt to maintain its position on the waistline.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device concealed by the waistband of a lower body garment wherein said device frictionally engages user""s skin or undergarments while supporting the lower body garment around the wearer""s waist.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device for maintaining a lower body garment around the wearer""s waistline that does not complicate dressing or undressing by the wearer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device for keeping a lower body garment up around the user""s waistline which has a quick release means for locking and unlocking onto the user""s body.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device for maintaining a lower body garment around the user""s waistline which includes comprising an elastic fabric and means for adjusting the size to accommodate different sized users and to allow for gradual loss of resiliency of the fabric""s elasticity.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device to maintain a lower body garment around the user""s waistline, said device having a raised lip which cooperates with an external belt worn on the lower body garment to maintain lower body garment around the wearer""s waist.
This invention comprises a concealed lower body garment support device comprising a belt which is worn around a user""s waistline under the lower body garment it is supporting. The belt is a length of fabric with a first end and a second end and an upper edge and lower edge. The belt encircles a user""s body at the waistline and includes a means for fastening the first end. In the most preferred embodiment, the means for fastening comprises a quick release means for locking and unlocking the belt onto the user""s body. The means for fastening, comprising strips of hook and loop fasteners extending along a portion of the belt and overlap to join the first end to the second end, also provide a means for adjusting the belt to accommodate different sized users by varying the amount of the overlap. In addition, by varying the amount of the overlap, the belt can be adjusted to accommodate gradual loss of elasticity of the belt.
A raised lip is provided along the lower edge of the belt so that when a lower body garment is pulled up over the belt and fastened, it does not slide down the user""s stomach, but rather is maintained around the user""s waistline on the raised lip of the belt.
The raised lip of the belt is preferably constructed by folding over a portion of the belt along its length and affixing it to itself at a seam. A loop extending along the length of the belt at its lower edge is created thereby. The raised lip of the belt is then expanded by filling the loop with flexible material to increase the size of the lip and improve its support characteristics. The flexible filler material conforms to the user""s waistline but is adequately stable that it cannot be flattened, so that the raised lip maintains its shape.
The concealed lower body garment support belt is preferably constructed from an elastic material that allows it to hug the user""s body or undergarments snugly so that, as a result of the high friction interior surface, the belt does not slide down over the user""s stomach. As the elasticity of the belt wears out, it is adjusted by changing the overlap of the hook and loop fastener strips so that the same snug fit around the user""s waistline is maintained.
The invention disclosed herein is advantageous over the prior art because it provides a simple device for maintaining a lower body garments, such as pants, shorts or skirts, around a user""s waistline without requiring any additional fastening to upper body garments or suspender attachments that go over the shoulders. The concealed lower body garment support belt of the present invention relieves the user of the need to repeatedly pull a lower body garment up over his stomach, without attaching the lower body garment to an upper body garment or suspender mechanism. The belt of the present invention maintains its position around the users waistline better than the pants, shorts or skirts do by themselves or with the attachment of an external belt as the result of its high friction inner surface and snug fit facilitated by the elastic material and adjustment of the hook and loop fastener overlap. It provides this advantage without requiring any complication to the dressing and undressing by the user.